Love Bites Then it Sucks by Julie Steimle (best self help books to read .TXT) 📕

Looking to Mandy again as she started to ask around to see if anyone knew where I went, watching her hold my wallet, an idea occurred to me. I went back to my text feature on my cellphone and typed in a message to Hanz. Walking over to the step near the blood truck, I gently set the phone down, not quite letting it go yet as I pressed SEND again.

I immediately took my hands off of it.

I watched the phone become solid. The bars on my connection shot up to full. And the text was received.

Breathing easier, I reached down to pick up my phone.

 My fingers went through it.

I tried again.

No use. I could not pick it up again. When it left me, it was no longer part of my condition. That meant my wallet was also gone for good.

“What’s this? Somebody lost a phone,” the technician picked up my cellphone. He then scrolled through the apps looking for one that showed the owner’s identity.

Mandy turned and reached out. “That’s Eve’s.”

I moaned. She had my wallet and my cell phone now.

The phlebotomist held it out to her as if it carried the black plague. He even rubbed anti-bacterial lotion all over his hands after he had touched it. Hissing to her, peeking around, he said, “You don’t know what germs could be on that.”

Great. A germophobe phlebotomist.

And Mandy had my cell phone.

What was I going to do now?

My cellphone rang.

Mandy stared at it for a minute and then pressed then swiped it down to accept. “Eve’s phone?”

I could not hear what was being said on the other side, but Mandy’s face contorted with a little surprise as she responded, “No. Actually uh, I found, or rather this guy here found her phone. I work with Eve.”

The other side responded to her.

She replied, “I don’t know. She was just here, just a second ago. I found her wallet too. What do you mean she just texted you? I mean seriously we just found her wallet and phone—and she just vanished.”

Watching Mandy listening to Hanz’s protests, as he was the one I had just texted, I felt like screaming out for him. Mandy could not hear me, but maybe he could.

“I’m here!” I shouted. “I’m right here! I’m just… stuck!”

“I don’t know,” Mandy replied to him. “Eve does not usually joke around like this.”

I yelled louder. “I am here! HANZ! PLEASE HEAR ME!”

But I detected no sign that either Mandy or Hanz had picked up even smidgeon of my voice

Shrieking now, I was sobbing. “MANDY! HANZ! I’M NOT GONE! SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED TO ME! MY WINGS ARE STUCK! I’M STUCK INVISIBLE!”

Mandy chuckled and said, “Maybe she is invisible.”

I panted, staring at her. Had she heard me?

I screamed, “MANDY! TELL HANZ I MET AN ANGEL OF DEATH!”

I saw her blinking, but then shaking off that thought. Oh, crap. She could hear me, but she was hearing me the same as she would hear her imps. Mandy was a decent person. She had bad taste in novels, but I knew she was the kind of person who ignored the mischievous shouts of her imps. She would ignore me too if it sounded crazy.

So I screamed, “MANDY! TELL HANZ SOMETHING URGENT CAME UP AND MIGHT HAVE TO MISS OUR ENGAGEMENT PARTY!”

She blinked on that thought and said, “Maybe something urgent came up and she might have to miss your engagement party.”

She could hear me. But like an imp, I had to scream to be heard. It explained a lot, actually. I always wondered why most imps screamed all the time. But it made sense also why imps who did not scream worried me. When imps did not scream, it was because they did not need to. They were being listened for in those cases. Only truly evil people did that.

What could I do? I could go find Hanz and shout at him what had happened. Or I could find someone else to help me

But who could help me?

Who would be able to see or hear me?

Nodding to myself, I made a list—people who could see ghosts and people who could see invisible beings such as half-imps like me. Immediately names and faces came to me. Rick had two friends who would be able to see me: Tom Brown, who was half imp, and Joshua Johnson. Then there was Deidre Johnson, who I was afraid I had lost contact with when we graduated high school. I had assumed she had gone on the run when she tried to leave her no-good father and he would not let her. I had told her not to trust him. But who else? These were all east coast people? Who on the west…? My mind went to Tabitha Raines. She could see only beings that were talking about her. But that was like imps. I was not sure death angels fit into that category. But she would not be in town for another week. Not until the wedding. She lived in Reno now. Who else did I know?

There was that kid, Roddy Mayhem. But he had also moved East. But what about that gang he was part of? What happened to them again? I think some of them broke out of prison. They had to be back on the street, though I think they moved locations. Some of the imps said they had moved to Miami, but I had figured they were joking. Besides, I doubted they would help me. I was screwed. I had to find someone who could see ghosts. In the meantime, screaming to be heard would have to do.

Pulling out my wings, I launched into the sky. I had a few hours left before the engagement dinner. I had to get to Hanz.

Chapter Two

Hanz worked at the place I liked least. The hospital. It smelled of blood, bleach, and all sorts of things which made me feel ill. I hated hospitals. But he was a doctor in training, and it was a noble career. It was my older brother Will’s career too. I respected them for it. I just could not stand the smell of the blood—or the dead.

But I went to the hospital. I had to find Hanz.

Going through the walls, I searched for him. As a young med-student, worked in the emergency room, I knew he was busy all day, wearing himself out—without coffee to sustain him as he didn’t drink the stuff. He was an orange juice addict, though. I spotted him in the hallway discussing something with a lead doctor, holding his cell phone in one hand and looking worried. Standing next to him, though, was the gray angel I had seen in his hometown that Christmas many years ago.

“You cannot be here,” that angel said, turning to face me. He stood between me and Hanz, blocking my way.

I grabbed the angel by his… I guess it was tunic or robe, “What are you doing here? Why are you people doing this to me?”

Two more death angels showed up, one who looked like a doctor herself, though she seemed more like a doctor name Ludmila Kropotkin who enjoyed torturing people for information. The other wore brown robes making him looked like a monk. He even had a bald spot but it appeared to be just male pattern baldness than a haircut. Both of them grabbed me, prying me off of him and holding me back.

“HEY! YOU DON’T DO THAT TO PEOPLE!” I screamed.

The gray angel huffed.

But Hanz turned around, looking. “Eve?”

The gray angel shot Hanz a panicked glance then one to the other two angels. He pointed, “Take her out of here!”

“NO!” I screamed. “HANZ! I’M BEING KIDNAPPED!”

Hanz went pale, reaching out to feel me.

But I was whipped out of there faster than I could wriggle free, and we were all soon high above the hospital Hanz worked at, just below the airplanes.

“WHAT RIGHT DID YOU HAVE TO RIP ME OUT OF MY LIFE LIKE THAT?” I screamed as a seagull soared by.

The three ‘angels’ (if I could even call them that as they really did not exude the kind of light that I had seen from that true guardian angel way back when that evil spirit was banished from the Bale’s house) held me tight, one with a sword at my neck, another with a scythe. Both weapons felt substantially dangerous—like something I could not avoid ever. Most solid objects passed straight through me if I wanted. I had let bullets and knives and arrows pass though me without leaving a scratch on my body. But these, I doubted would pass through safely. They felt more real for some reason.

“You ask that question of us?” the gray angel said with dry eyes.

Snarling back, I strained against the grips of my captors. “Yes! I have lived my life circumspectly! I have done no human harm! The Holy Seven themselves—”

“Are not God,” the gray angel replied.

“Neither are you!” I bit back. I shoved one of the ‘angels’ off, elbowing ‘Ludmila’ in the gut.

Huffing impatiently at me, the gray angel replied, “But we are sent by Him.”

“What?” My stomach sank. Nausea rose in my throat.

He nodded to me. “He sent us to claim you for redemption.”

I jerked back, trying to get loose from the monk angel. “That’s what that biker said. What the hell does that mean?”

“You mean ‘what the Heaven’ does that mean?” the gray angel replied drably.

“Oh please…” The cheese level was killing me. I moaned. “Is this some kind of running gag among you death angels?”

“So you know what we are?” the Ludmila lady inquired, her gaze full of honest surprise.

I nodded. “Yeah. I knew girl who could see ghosts who mentioned you. And I’ve seen a few already.” I gestured to the gray angel. “You lied to me. You said you were a guardian.”

“I am a guardian,” he said. He then drew out a sword. I stared at it, then him. Were they going to kill me? Was this the end of my sad existence? Right as I was about to marry the man of my dreams, and I get killed by death angels because the Holy Seven wouldn’t kill me? The gray angel pointed his sword at me. “And I was set to guard the people from you.”

My jaw dropped open. “But I haven’t hurt anybody!”

He snorted. “Oh no? What about those men in the mountains who were hunting a dangerous werewolf?”

I rolled my eyes. “They attacked my family. And none of them died. Besides, what right do they have to kill somebody due to an accident of birth? Rick is not evil. He has not killed a soul!”

Snorting again, the angel replied, “Oh no? What about those people in Germany?”

I snarled. Rick had told me about the German werewolf incident. And I said to this presumptuous ‘angel’, “It was in self-defense. They had murdered his friend and tried to eat his other two friends.”

“But what about all those people you killed in the mountains near your town?” the gray angel asked.

I pushed away the scythe, huffing. “You mean all those